


Out of The Blue

by SilkTopHat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 23:51:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16842943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilkTopHat/pseuds/SilkTopHat
Summary: The events of Voldemort's near-return and Harry's renewed relationship with his son bring consequences he hadn't prepared for. The life he had built seemed to be falling apart, and an attempt at solitary solace brings memories of a relationship he's done everything he could to forget.





	Out of The Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Welcome!
> 
> I'm quite obsessed, as a general rule, with forcing my OTP's to be canon compliant. This proved a challenge, but one I was ready to attempt. I've done my best to be as canon-compliant as possible, for this story, please let me know of any discrepancies so I can address them!
> 
> My first HP fic, open to feedback, etc etc <3

Raucous laughter assaulted his ears the second Harry Potter stepped into the muggle pub he'd decided to enter. He winced for a moment at the sound, auror-instincts still causing him to twitch his hand to his concealed wand for a moment before he realized the sound was only fellow pub patrons. Sighing inwardly, he made his way to the bar, got himself a pint and located a vacant table near the back.

Settling in and helping himself to a mouthful, he asked himself for what felt like the twentieth time why he'd decided venturing, alone, to a muggle pub was the best way for him to spend a Friday evening. As twenty four years had passed since the war, he was not accosted on the streets quite as badly anymore, and he really didn't have to hide out in muggle London anymore. The fact of the matter was, however, that here in this muggle pub, no one was likely to ask him the questions he was just not up to answering yet.

_Hey Harry, where's Gin?_  
_Potter! Where've you been lately? How's the family?_  
_Oh, Harry, I just heard. I'm so sorry-_

Harry stifled a groan and closed his eyes. Just over a year ago, he'd gotten his son back from what he had been certain was his death. Saving his relationship with Albus had seemed so impossible when Al had come home from first year, that for months he was on such a high he hadn't realized what had happened. Ginny's resentment hadn't shown up at first. For weeks they'd been happier than ever, celebrating the strength of their family. Harry had been so happy, he hadn't even noticed how long it had been since they'd held each other, since their kisses had been more than mechanical pecks; it seemed to sudden. The bed grew cold, the conversation more robotic, and by the time Harry noticed that Ginny had not gotten over what had happened with Al, by the time he realized that while he'd been able to repair his relationship with Al it had not extended to the love of his life, she already had one foot out the door.

Harry opened his eyes to his almost-finished pint glass, wondering how many would go down tonight before he forgot their last row, the last look in her stunningly beautiful eyes so filled with coldness. He picked up the glass and tipped it back to drain it, but spluttered on the last sip as a strangely familiar voice cut through the fog of his unpleasant thoughts.

"POT-TER!?" the voice slurred, thick with alcohol consumption but not entirely void of the posh, smarmy accent it had always carried.

Harry blinked, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth as his eyes (slightly slow ont he uptake) sought out the source of the voice and settled on a table a few away, where a devastatingly familiar platinum-blonde man sat staring at him incredulously. Harry took a moment to note the other man, be they wizard or muggle, raise a hand and grab Draco Malfoy's shoulder almost possessively while they glared at Harry. He watched the glare turn darker as Malfoy gracefully staggered over to him (how do you stagger gracefully? Only Malfoy could ever do that). "It IS you!" Malfoy slurred again, dropping himself equally as gracefully into the vacant chair at Harry's table.

"Mal..foy?" Harry asked, still stunned to see his-once-rival-then-something-now-Al's-bestfriend's-father in a muggle pub in London. "Th' hell are you doing here?"

Malfoy let out a very un-Malfoy-ish giggle. "Trying to forget." he said simply, looking down at his hands and realizing they were empty. Malfoy looked up and over in the direction from which he came, and his eyes traced to the man who'd been hanging off him, who was approaching carrying two drinks.

"Drake, who's your friend?" The man asked, giving Harry a once-over that brought him right back to Hogwarts. It was the sort of look you spent so much time controlling how it appeared that you didn't actually notice anything about the person.

" _This_ is Harry Potter." Malfoy said, giving Harry an appraising look. "We were.. school mates. Mr. Potter here was quite the celebrity at our school." Malfoy giggled again as Harry's heart twinged with a memory. _Mr. Potter, our new celebrity._ "Now I mostly just get to hear about his charming son, however, who is my son's best friend." These seemed to placate the other man, who immediate turned to Malfoy like Harry was no longer there, and leaned forward to speak directly into Malfoy's ear. "Ohh, well on any other day perhaps, but I'd like to speak with Mr. Potter here for a bit." More whispered conversation. "Now, don't _be_ like that." Malfoy's voice was cooing, and definitely flirty but in a.. fake way, Harry decided. The other man glared at Malfoy for a second, then spouted a few choice words and quite literally stormed away, slamming the drinks down on the bar before leaving.

Malfoy watched him leave, a disinterested look on his face, before sighing and shaking his head. He turned back to Harry, and froze when he saw the look on harry's face. "What, Potter?" He said, and Harry's heart hurt with nostalgia for that tone.

"Drake?" Harry asked, unable to keep the corner of his mouth from twitching.

Malfoy rolled his eyes and leaned back into his chair, appearing for a second to be considerably more sober than he had a few moments before. "I got rather sick of having to explain to every Tom, Dick and.." Malfoy smirked. "Harry, that Draco was a family name and yes it's strange and my parents thought it was a proper name and all that. Muggles.." He said the last word with some malign, but there was a softness to it that Harry found interesting, given the way Malfoy used to speak about muggles when they were young.

"Spend you evenings with muggles fairly frequently, then?" Harry asked before he could really consider his word choice or his tone. Malfoy gave him a disapproving look and stood.

"I find it's easier to pretend you're someone else, from another life, when everyone doesn't immediately know who you are." Harry blinked, the notion striking a tone with him, and his slightly alcohol-infused brain took too long deciphering it that he didn't immediately realize Malfoy had left. He was surprised at the disappointment this caused him, and even more surprised at the feeling of relief that washed over him when he was the taller man return with two drinks, one a pint glass identical to the one he'd just finished. Perhaps he was just happy to see the beer.

"Thanks." He said gratefully, taking a sip and considering Malfoy over the rim. He set his glass down with surprise as Malfoy downed half his drink in one go, and yet somehow managed to not get a spot of moisture on him. If Harry tried a move like that he'd be soaked. "So, why are you in a pub in muggle London?" Harry said, speaking somewhat low but confident that the sounds of the pub would drown him out, and there were no patrons int he tabled adjacent to them.

Malfoy was still staring at his glass, having not lifted his eyes from it since he'd set it down. He took a shaky breath, and Harry waited. "Its her..." Malfoy's voice cracked. "Her birthday."

It took Harry a moment to think of who Malfoy could possibly mean. But his mind finally settled on a conversation they'd had, about Scorpius, about his mother. "Astoria?" He asked softly, and Malfoy closed his eyes sharply. Harry saw a single nod, his heart, which he'd been compartmentalizing away so he didn't have to deal with his own pain, hurting for the man across from him. Malfoy suddenly lifted his glass and downed it, which seemed a cause for concern. "And you're trying to.. forget?"

Malfoy set the glass down with force. "As best I can. Come now, let's have another. You're clearly trying to forget something too, we might as well do so together." and with that he stood to get another drink.

Later, as Harry finished the pint Malfoy had gotten him and as the blond was getting his fourth since coming over to Harry's table while shamelessly flirting with the female bartender, Harry took the time to wonder how he'd gotten in this predicament. Why did Malfoy always show up, out of the blue with years in between, and throw off his life's axis. Why hadn't Scorpius been born a few years earlier or later so he hadn't been in Al's year. Her hadn't seen him for nearly a decade before he'd been right there, at King's Cross, bold as brass.

**

_The sights and sounds of the platform were so familiar, wonderful.. All the families, bustling together and saying thei goodbyes.. His own amazing family, two of his three going off to Hogwarts.. The scarlet steam engine.._  
  
_He looked up at Ron's words, and his heart leapt into his throat. There he was, appearing out of the blue like he always did. Draco stood with Astoria, saying goodbye to a little blond boy who looked exactly as his father had, all those years ago in Madame Malkin's. He heard Ron's comment, naming the boy Harry hadn't seen since he was a baby, but gave a non-committal grunt. He wasn't about to admit the times he'd spent in their home when that eleven year old boy was just an infant._  
  
_He froze when those grey eyes, silver in the right light, met the bright green of his own, and the curt nod was an acknowledgement._  
  
_Neither of them would break the agreement they'd had at their last parting. They'd just be friends, then, but they'd both decided it would be better to sever those ties completely..._

_**_

Hours later, he was walking down the street towards Number 12, Grimmauld Place, with Malfoy's arm draped over his shoulder. He was keeping the blond upright despite Malfoy's every attempt to waltz off into the night, and starting to get rather annoyed with it. Malfoy was singing something Harry had never heard of, to himself, as they strolled along. They came to the spot between numbers eleven and thirteen, and Harry went to tell Malfoy the address when he remembered with a lurch that the other man already knew. He coughed to hide his embarrassment, not hat Malfoy was in any state to notice it, and walked up to and through the front door.

Malfoy let out that strange giggle that seemed to be alcohol-induced again. "My MY!" he said, far louder than necessary. "I haven't been HERE in what.. twenty years, Ha-Potter?" Harry noticed the hiccup before his surname but didn't think much of it, given that the posh accent had rapidly fallen to almost unintelligible slurring. "Why're we here, anyway? You don't live here anymore."

"Malfoy, I told you I live here now. Around the same time I told you I wasn't going to watch you splinch yourself apparating home like this." He'd decided that, despite their history, he'd feel better knowing Malfoy died of alcohol poisoning in his home rather than splinching himself to death. He was now somewhat regretting this decision. He unceremoniously dragged Malfoy up the stairs to one of the spare rooms, and tossed him onto the bed.

"Been a few years since you did that, too, eh Potter?" another giggle, to which Harry rolled his eyes. "I still don't understand why we're here. I remember distinctly." Harry had a moment to wonder how Malfoy could slur ‘Potter’ but articulate ‘distinctly’. “Th-last time you were ‘round my house. When Scorpius was just a baby. You said you had to be getting home, and home was in Ottery St. Whateveritis.” Harry snorted. The last time he was ‘round Malfoys House..

**

_“He’s pretty cute, I’ll give you that.” Harry smiled, looking up at Dra-Malfoy. Harry thoguht to himself that he might as well get used to going back to the other man’s surname,given their decision to try to be friendly, so many years after they were.. something more than that._

_“That he is.” Malfoy said proudly, looking over Harry’s shoulder into the crib which Harry leaned. “He is going to be a fine wizard.”_

_Harry rolled his eyes. “You probably already have an alchemy lab for toddlers set up for him." The silver flash in Malfoy’s eyes confirmed Harry’s hypothesis, and he laughed._

_After leaving Scorpius to his nap, they had tea. Harry had come over as Malfoy’s request, as Astoria Malfoy was an St. Mungos for a checkup for the day and Malfoy had been on edge about it. The birth had not gone well for Mrs. Malfoy, and her health had declined significantly. She was starting to make a recovery though, and Harry thought it was important to ease Malfoy’s stress so that he could be there for her emotionally as well as physically._

_Tea turned to talking. Talking turned to joking and teasing. This turned almost dangerous before either of them noticed. An awkward silence stretched out after they both simultaneous realized the direction their talking had gone, and Harry stood quite awkwardly when it became obvious there was no salvaging the situation, making the susual excuses about needing to get home, despite the fact he’d planned on staying all afternoon. As Malfoy saw him to the fireplace, he sighed, and stopped Harry with a hand on his shoulder before he wleft. “I don’t think this was such a great idea.” Malfoy said difficultly, and Harry swallowed, faced away from that face, those eyes, while he gathered himself._

_“Perhaps not. Maybe not at each other houses, then? We could still.. try. To be friends. We could just.. get tea somewhere, now and then, keep up.. correspondence?” The words were strained, awkward in his mouth, and he knew Malfoy could sense that Harry was forcing it. He nodded though, and forced his own smile, before Harry took the floo powder and beat a hasty retreat, unwilling to address the ‘forever’ in Malfoy’s eyes as he bid him farewell._

_They tried to see each other three more times, before giving up for good._

_**_

“Hullooooo? Potter?” Malfoy’s voice broke Harry out of his reverie, and he blinked and looked down at him. he was now sitting at the edge of the bed, Malfoy positively _draped_ behind him with his head on the pillow, white gold hair like a halo around him. Harry was unwilling to admit to himself the feeling the image gave him, and what memories were brought forward. “Ah, there you are. Now _do_ tell me for I _must_ know. Why have you come back the the home of my ancestors?”

For some reason, his tone made something snap in Harry. It was that posh, _I smell gossip_ tone that had been his whole reason for avoiding wizarding locations and going into muggle London in the first place. “Because I had to leave the other house.” He snapped, turning away before he caught the full effect of the sudden, shocked expression on Malfoy’s face. He stared at the far wall for a second, before standing up brusquely and heading to the bedroom door. “Sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Harry...” The voice was so soft, so familiar, he had to close his eyes against it. “She’s a fool, then.” So quiet, so tender. Harry suppressed a shudder as he walked through the door.

Harry made his way up to his own bedroom, Sirius’ old one which he’d moved back into when he and Ginny had agreed to separate a month ago, and prepared for bed. Scooting under the covers, he felt a moments relief at the realization he wasn’t going to fight memories and thoughts of Ginny as he tried to get some rest. Instead, he was going to fight memories of that body, those silvery grey eyes, and that voice speaking his name.

**

_“Harry..” Draco moaned, his head thrown back against the pillow underneath it. Harry was above him, sliding their lengths together with the added friction of his hand, lubricated with a spell. He was so close, watching the blond writhe beneath him had always been enough to bring him to climax, but he held out, wanting Draco to come first._

_He leaned down to run his tongue along Draco’s exposed neck, causing the blond to gasp and the cock against Harry’s own to jerk. Harry moaned into Draco’s neck as he reached the point where he couldn’t hold back any longer. Desperate to try anything he brought his lips to Draco’s ear, nibbling on the lobe for a second before whispering “Come, Draco. I want to feel you come.” The words were not as eloquent as what Draco’s used when he tortured Harry, but they seemed to be enough for Draco to take a sharp intake of breath before crying out, hot wetness coating Harry’s hand and Draco’s torso. With relief Harry let himself go, gasping into Draco’s neck again._

_This had been a regular occurrence for months now, Draco coming by Number 12 to be satiated. At first Draco had come ‘round as some kind of obligation, to thank Harry for speaking at his trial which resulted in his short sentence and ability to rejoin the wizarding world after his release. They’d formed an unlikely friendship, as Harry had found someone he could talk to other than Ron, Hermione or the Weasleys who treated Harry like a normal person. The sex had come so suddenly, it seemed one day they had been becoming something like best friends, and the next day Harry had Draco shoved against a wall, running his hands over the pale, soft skin as he tasted every corner of Draco’s willing mouth._

_It was almost a year before they both decided the world wasn’t ready for Harry Potter to be with Draco Malfoy, and they had ended things with the notion that they'd just been mutually attracted friends, and that the relationship had just been good for a shag._

_It had always, always been more to Harry. but he was willing to pretend if it meant Draco would be happier._

_**_

He’d be willing to pretend, always.

**Author's Note:**

> There we have the first chapter! I wanted to establish the past, and give me something to build on as we continue forward, here. Let me know if anything doesn't make sense, and hopefully I can stick with finishing this one!


End file.
